Texas white bass

WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Monday, August 3rd, I fished with a crew of four first-time guests. Mr. Bart Dutton coordinated this trip some six weeks ago and brought along his son, Sean Dutton, his stepson, Trevor Holterhaus, and his neighbor, Mike Polcyn. Bart escaped the rules, regulations, taxes, politics and high cost of living near San Diego, CA, and moved his trucking business to Texas. Now, doing the same work he was doing on the West Coast, he’s enable to enjoy the fruits of his labors instead of forking his earnings over to the government just hoping to scrape by. Sean just followed in his father’s footsteps and arrived here last week. Trevor is headed to 8th grade in the Killeen Independent School District, and Mike is an active duty U.S. Army Warrant Officer.

PHOTO CAPTION #1: From left: Mike Polcyn, Sean Dutton, Trevor Holterhaus, and Bart Dutton. This crew of first-timers cashed in on a pre-frontal weather scenario to the tune of 121 fish in 3.5 hours.

WHEN WE FISHED: 03 August, 2020, AM

WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

HOW WE FISHED: Today’s real story was the weather. We had a very mild cold front move in today with a barely perceptible wind shift from south, through west, to the northwest. This was like a slower, milder version of the same sort of weather that moved through last Friday. There was a strong topwater feed this morning under low-light conditions, then, after the fish left the surface as the sun’s direct rays shone on it, the fish almost immediately began feeding more sporadically in open water for just seconds at a time. This can be frustrating, as it is rare to sight these fish, then be able to get to them in time to cast, however, seeing multiple schools pop up repeatedly in a defined area reveals their position and makes them vulnerable to downrigging. We took advantage of the aggressive low-light bite, which yielded 79 fish in 65 minutes, most of which came on the MAL Lures in both white and chartreuse, with a few taken on downriggers before the action began, and again after it was tapering off. As this action ended, we moved on to an area where, at any given time, one or two schools of topwater feeding whites could be seen churning the surface in a stretch of about 1/8 of a mile. We took a steady feed of singles, doubles, and a few triples from out of this area with 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with silver/white #12 Pet Spoons and silver/yellow #13 Pet Spoons. Only one time did we run into a scenario where we could Spot-Lock atop fish and work MAL Lures vertically for them. Under the pre-frontal conditions we were experiencing, I felt we could do better, so, we left fish to find fish which we could fish vertically for. Our tally now stood at 104 fish. In our final 40 minutes on the water (bearing in mind we wrapped up about 30 minutes early when my crew had enough of the Texas heat), we found just what I was hoping to find. As the sonar screen lit up with fish from mid-depth to bottom in about 34 feet of water, both downriggers went off simultaneously. Once we cleared those fish, I went back over that mass of fish, hovered over them with the Ulterra, and we worked MAL Lures through them to put a final 14 fish in the boat before Bart voted we call it a day.

TALLY: 121 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: We enjoyed yet another pre-frontal scenario, albeit quite mild, complete with a S to W to NW wind shift and solid fishing to match.

TODAY’S CONDITIONS/NOTES:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 10:00A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Elevation: 1.56′ low, 0.05′ 24-hour change, 51 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.5F

Wind Speed & Direction: See NOAA graphic; winds followed forecast exactly today.

Moon Phase: Full moon today

GT = 5

Wx SNAPSHOT: Once again, a pre-frontal weather scenario — exciting!!!